Watercolor Averages

On Friday, Jama asked why she never knew that I was a painter.
Well, there's a reason for that.
I'm a secret painter!  I've always loved to draw, but haven't done it often.

I've actually recently begun painting with watercolors.  I think I can safely say that.  About 30 or more years ago, I took one class in watercolor and I was not very good at it.  It's really something you need to keep doing to get a real feel for the paints.  So I stopped and resumed life instead of doing another painting, I had kids.  And we raised horses.  And moved.  And then I retired and thought, "Why not try that watercolor stuff again?  You don't have to eat on a schedule anymore.  There are no horses waiting for supper.  No kids waiting to be picked up at soccer practice." 
One day out driving, I noticed a sign by a library saying they were doing watercolor classes on Wednesday mornings.  It was only hour away from home, which may seem far to you, but everything is about an hour away from home (or more) in Maine. I signed up and went for a couple of months.  It was a wonderful time of paint and coffee and talk - very informal, not pushy, lots of trial and error and error and praise for good attempts and minor successes.  It was a wonderful time and maybe I should go again.  It stopped for a bit in winter, and I haven't been back.  It's an hour away, and I did one good painting.

I do a few really awful paintings and then one good one.  Then I stop for a while, frozen in fear that I cannot do it again.  And that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Of course you can't do it again if you never do it again.  But then again, you can't fail either, if stopping isn't failing, that is!  I regulate my success/failure rate that way I guess.  Or I think I do.  I don't really.  You have to swing and miss most of the time to bat a .300.  If you don't swing, you don't miss.  If you don't miss you don't get any score.

I do love all manner of creative expression.  As with most things in my life, I've just never become proficient at them.  I know a little about a lot of things.  Some things I do well, but most I do just at a moderately successful level.

Here's a chronological ordering of watercolors I've done that I am okay with right now.  I say right now, because, just as a child looks back at work they did when they were younger and thinks - "ewww!"  I have done that with work that I let percolate a bit.  "Ewww! How could I have thought that was good?"  And then pick apart all the bad things about it.

My Cow (I don't have a cow)

A Spark entry

This year's Christmas card

Ginger - a present for my husband

It is time to pick up the brushes again.  It was a long time coming and lots of experimentation and futzing about, but finally for Spark 29, I got my paints together and came up with my Journey to Iceland watercolor.

Journey to Iceland

Bravely, boldly.  And not too seriously!  Who cares what it looks like?  Right?  Just have fun.  You should try it.  You don't have to show anyone your work.  I just do it as a bit of validation (maybe?) for myself.  Or a bit of trying out "Bold", my olw for 2016. Good, bad or indifferent, I'm trying to make things to be okay in their own right.  A beautiful attempt, maybe not a beautiful conclusion... but beauty in the boldness!  Oooh,  now there's a title for a poem... "Beauty in the Boldness".  Perhaps a theme.  Let me mull this one over.  I think I have something percolating.  Bye!